Being entertained and going social: The Ultimate Smartphone Guide, part II

Hunting down the best apps for reading comics, finding a restaurant, and more.

The best apps for streaming videos

Netflix(free for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) and Hulu Plus (free for iOS and Android) are arguably the only apps needed to get your movie and television fix. You have to shell out a $7.99 monthly subscription for each. Netflix is the best for watching old flicks, catching up on oft-forgotten French cinema, or dabbling in some older seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, while Hulu Plus will get you through a current season of almost every show available on basic cable. It also features seasons of off-the-air shows like Lost, in case you missed it the first time around. There's even a healthy offering of international television shows and movies from the United Kingdom, Latin America, and Asia.

Enlarge/ The Netflix app offers tons of television shows and movies for instant viewing.

Crackle (free for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) is a free service that features a few decent offerings of classic movies and television shows every month. It's a great option if you'd rather not deal with a monthly subscription.

Enlarge/ Crackle, on the other hand, may have a less-than-stellar offering of content, but it won't cost you a cent!

For general video watching, both YouTube (free for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) and Vimeo (free for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone) have a vast selection of offerings—everything from your favorite cat video to the latest interpretive art short film, which is what Vimeo is particularly reliable for.

The best apps for mobile photographers

(This section by Chris Foresman)

Being one of the most popular mobile photography platforms (hence the term "iPhoneography"), iOS has a very wide selection of photo-related apps available, and the platform is capable of a tremendous amount of post-processing due to its fast CPU and GPU combo. But Android is becoming much stronger in the photography category as well; it has many of the popular iOS apps in addition to a few options unique to the platform, and quad-core Snapdragon-powered Android phones with powerful Adreno GPUs also make for quick picture-taking. Windows Phone still struggles to attract the breadth of developers targeting iOS and Android, so options there are sparse. However, we did find a few gems to recommend to those opting for Redmond's well-designed platform.

Shooting from the hip

The built-in camera app on iOS is very good for snapshots, but it doesn't offer much in the way of versatility. Dozens of apps are designed to be replacements for the stock camera app, and many of them are quite good at offering additional features and more control.

KitCam ($1.99 on iOS) is an especially good newcomer, and it offers the one feature I've been asking for from Apple for a long time: user-adjustable exposure compensation. This is essentially an override for the standard autoexposure, and it will lighten or darken the image to better fit the photographer's vision.

Other great entrants include Camera+ ($0.99), ProCamera ($2.99), and 645 PRO ($2.99). These apps offer additional aspect ratios, various composition grids, white balance locking, separate focus and exposure locks, and live histograms to gauge exposure and contrast. Some also include built-in editing, filtering, and sharing features, so they can serve as a one-stop photo app for some users.

The stock camera app on Android tends to vary from vendor to vendor, and even model to model. And while most built-in camera apps offer more options than the stock iOS camera, most of the features are often buried in complicated menus.

There's probably no better overall camera replacement app for Android than Camera Zoom FX ($2.99 on Android). In addition to offering image stabilization, time-lapse, and other shooting options, it also offers a wide variety of effects that can be activated and used live, so you see the results as you shoot.

Enlarge/ Camera Zoom FX (Android) is a good replacement for the stock camera, with an expanded variety of shooting controls in an easy to use interface.

However, Shot Control ($2.99 on Android) may appeal more to some experienced photogs. All of the important settings are laid out right on the screen, including adjustable focus options, ISO, white balance, resolution, and various "scene" modes similar to those offered on many DSLRs. In addition, the viewfinder also has adjustable zoom and exposure compensation sliders.

Enlarge/ Unfortunately, whatever API Shot Control (Android) uses to generate the preview image doesn't work with Android's screen capture capability, but you can see the easy-to-access exposure controls.

Another good option is Vignette ($2.60 on Android). This app sprang to life in the wake of the growing popularity of Instagram when that app was iOS-only. In addition to a wide variety of vintage-style filters and effects, however, it can also serve as a camera replacement, with features like composition guides, Bluetooth remote shooting, self-timer and time-lapse shooting, and a 10x digital zoom.

Enlarge/ Vignette (Android) was the platform's answer to Instagram when that app was still iOS-only.

Windows Phone doesn't have much in the way of a camera replacement, but it does have a few interesting "camera lenses," in WP8 parlance—a sort of plug-in for the standard camera app. A popular one is CamWow (free on Windows Phone), which sort of turns your Windows Phone into a clone of Apple's Photo Booth app, complete with cheesy live effects. Another is ReadyClick! ($1.99 on Windows Phone), which adds voice control to the camera. Simply saying "ReadyClick" out loud causes the camera to autofocus and take a picture—great for self-portraits and group photos.

Slap a filter on it

As we mentioned above, the ever-popular (or perennially hated, depending on your point of view) Instagram (free on iOS and Android) is still one of the top "filter-type" apps which apply pre-built, retro-themed filters to otherwise banal snaps. Windows Phone users are stuck with apps like Metrogram (free on Windows Phone), which merely lets users view and comment on Instagram photos, though Lomogram (free on Windows Phone) is a good alternative. Even if it can't post photos to the popular Instagram sharing service, it can post to Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and others.

Enlarge/ Lomogram (Windows Phone) can't unfortunately upload images to Instagram, but it has gobs and gobs of filters, borders, overlays, and other tweaks.

Enlarge/ FxCamera (Android) is a fun filter app with a lot of options, including "instant," toycam," and "poster" styles.

In addition to adding fun filters and borders, some apps help you create multi-image collages. Diptic ($0.99 on iOS and Android) is my preferred option here, though there are plenty to choose from these days. Phototastic ($1.99 on Windows Phone) is your best bet on Redmond's smartphone platform.

Enlarge/ Phototastic (Windows Phone) makes it a snap to build a variety of multi-image collages.

A panoramic view

iOS 6 frankly has one of the best integrated panorama features available on any smartphone. But if you have an older iOS device, or prefer Android or WP8, there are still good options available. Occipital's 360 Panorama ($0.99 on iOS and Android) is a great app that uses your smartphone's gyroscope sensors to automatically build a panoramic image by merely moving your device around a scene in any direction, both horizontally and vertically.

Another great app is Pano ($1.99 on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone). This app is a little more traditional, allowing you to build a panorama by taking a series of images in on direction or another. The app helps you align the images with a transparent overlay of the edge of the last frame. Once you've captured as many images as you need, Pano does a pretty good job of stitching them together automatically.

Photoshop in the palm of your hand

When it comes to photo editing, iOS still has a major advantage. There is, of course, Apple's own iPhoto ($4.99 on iOS), which we found to be an excellent editor in addition to offering additional organizational features. Apps like Photogene2 ($0.99), FX Photo Studio ($0.99), and PhotoForge2 ($3.99), among others, will only be found on this platform, offering an array of editing abilities and interfaces to suit nearly everyone.

However, Google decided to improve Android's mobile photography options by acquiring photo software maker Nik in September. Just last Thursday, the company announced Nik's popular mobile photo editor Snapseed is now on Android. Google also dropped the price from a completely reasonable $4.99 to the low, low price of free (iOS and Android). Snapseed features an interface built from the ground up for touchscreens, which allows you to simply swipe around your image to make brightness, contrast, saturation, and other adjustments. Like many mobile photo editors, it also features a wide selection of pre-built filters, effects, and borders.

Enlarge/ Snapseed (iOS) has a unique interface: swipe up or down to select an adjustment, and swipe left or right to increase or decrease the amount of adjustment.

In addition to Snapseed, Android users also have a couple worthwhile alternatives. Adobe Photoshop Express (free on iOS and Android) offers a variety of contrast, color, saturation, and other editing controls with a simple touch interface. OK, it's not actually "Photoshop in the palm of your hand," but it does let you edit your mobile images on the go before positing to your favorite social network or photo sharing site.

If you're looking for something a little more advanced, you might be better served looking into PicsPlay Pro ($1.99 on iOS and Android). In addition to built-in filter effects, you get a full complement of exposure, levels, curves, color balance, white balance, and other adjustments. You can compare before and after looks, and the app offers multiple levels of undo.

Photo Editor by Aviary (free on Android) is another great option built on the Web-based Aviary photo editor. It offers a wide variety of common photo editing options in addition to popular filters and borders.

An independent developer made his own Aviary-powered app for Windows Phone called Aviary Photo Editor (free on Windows Phone) that is a great option as well.

Enlarge/ There aren't many good editing apps for Windows Phone, but this app based on the Aviary SDK offers a lot of flexibility.

We're just getting started!

You should all be thoroughly entertained at this point, but there's still so much more to cover! We haven't even gotten into music yet—we'll be hitting that next week, with an entire dedicated feature. We also have yet to touch on gaming; on the other end of the spectrum, for you grown-ups who want to do grown-up things with your smart devices, we also have yet to look at productivity apps.

Florence Ion / Florence was a former Reviews Editor at Ars, with a focus on Android, gadgets, and essential gear. She received a degree in journalism from San Francisco State University and lives in the Bay Area.